Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (00:10):
Telecommunications infrastructure is evolving rapidly to meet the demands of AI implementation, cost optimization, and network scalability. Fernando Castro, Cristin, vice President and general manager of telco infrastructure at Hewlett Packard Enterprise joins us to discuss how infrastructure solutions and strategic partnerships are shaping the future of telecom. Fernando, thank you very much for being with us today. How is the telco compute infrastructure landscape evolving to meet increasing network demands while maintaining cost efficiency?

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (00:45):
So thanks for having me first. We've been working since decades in the telco industry and throughout those years we've been forecasting the telco demands in order to make sure we build the highly high quality and secure telco infrastructure platforms we need to build. And we have been able to build that trust with our customers and with our partners. And I'm talking about silicon vendors like a MD arm intel, but also the network equipment providers that are building all the solutions and the software that runs on our platforms in order to deliver those services. That goes to not only the optimization, but also the specifics of telco, like the NEPS certifications, ETSI certifications, all those things that need to happen in the telco world. So we've been working on these platforms to optimize them in terms of cost, in terms of performance, and we invested in both engineering and labs in order to get the right level of understanding of the requirements, the right level of engineering to build those platforms. And it's, it's a circle environment where we gain experience, we reinject that experience and we build better and better platforms. That started with the core. It is in the edge already and it's going to expand to other type of workloads and we will talk about AI later. So that's what we do. We come from the experience that we built, the investment we've been doing, and we build those platforms that allows the world of telco to evolve.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (02:43):
What infrastructure considerations are essential for telecom operators implementing or seeking to implement AI solutions?

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (02:51):
So that's a very interesting question. So AI is like a teenager going to the high school now. So they've been learning through those years and we are now moving into the, okay, now I'm ready to execute. I'm ready to enter the college and build my own life and start my career. So that's the kind of analogy. So inferencing at the edge is definitely something that will happen. And now that the training models have evolved, we're going to see appearing the workloads that will justify to have inferencing at the edge. So AI has its own life, it started, it matured, it becomes reality, and now it becomes something that is super important in the telco world. It becomes a potential monetization. We have seen the telcos being forced and being able to deliver high available networks and service to the population, to the enterprises, but still they had this problem that all the monetization was done on top of their network.

(04:13):
AI is really one of the ways that they can rebuild a new revenue stream, how we help them. So we are working of course, with the major partners like Nvidia, and we are building platforms that are totally aligned with our overall strategy being hybrid since the beginning. We talked about hybrid since the beginning of the cloud world, and this is still the same within ai. So we announced a discover recently in June in Las Vegas, the year 3 84, just to mention one system which is really focused in order to be able to address the enterprise. And the telcos are interested in those platforms that are highly optimized in order to run AI workloads. And some of them will be able to be transformed as revenue generating engines. And that's where we focus, provide the right infrastructure so we can help the operators evolve themselves and have highly secured again, and the system on security, highly secured environments where they can deliver more services and generate revenue out of it.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (05:32):
How are strategic partnerships helping to create more open and efficient infrastructure solutions in the telecom sector?

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (05:41):
It's a critical question that I would say there is. It's the link in between the ideal world and the real world. Ideal world, it's I will do everything. I can do everything. Everybody can do everything. The reality is that it is such a complex environment that you need to work with the best in class partners in order to build the best in class solutions. So best in class comes from silicon vendors that I mentioned earlier, but also the network equipment providers, ISVs, that know what they're talking about, and we work together in order to be the right solution. It's the most interesting part of my career to be able to have this acknowledgement that you know that you don't know. So you help the fact that you can enable partnership in order to create real value with the right experts. And that's in our DNA at HPE.

(06:51):
Your packet Enterprise has always been partner friendly. And why? Because we believe that everybody can bring a set of values, a set of technologies, a set of business practices and knowledge. And if we are able to work together, then we can build something that makes sense for the market, for the population, for the enterprises, and at the end we move on to the next generation. That's how in our DNA, we work in an environment that is totally hybrid. I mentioned it earlier and that is a plus. It's like diversity in the equation of all the actors. The more views you have on one problem, the more ways you have to solve that problem. And we are in that path that's in our DNA and I'm committed to that.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV (07:49):
Fernando, thank you. We appreciate your valuable insights.

Fernando Castro Cristin, HPE (07:53):
Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.